ATi 9600XT, FoxConn MoBo, Zalman Cooler and More

Good morning everyone, I hope you survived the weekend. Mine was pretty quite for a change, I just kicked around the house with the little lady. However, next weekend is going to be a different story; between my GF's birthday and Mothers Day (yes, mothers day is this upcoming Sunday) I am going to be pretty strapped for time. Now, only if I could figure out what to get them :( Nevertheless, it is getting late so lets open up the mail sack and see what we can find...

"If you already have the AIW 9600 Pro, this isn't an essential upgrade. If you're in the market for a gaming/multimedia card, I would still lean towards the AIW 9600 XT rather than the AIW 9800 Pro. Unless you're a hardcore gamer (in which case a dedicated gaming card may be a better option), the AIW 9600 XT is a better value for the money."

"The versatility of running RAID 0/1, on board Gigabit LAN, on board AC 97 sound, Firewire, USB 2.0, Hyperthreading support, SSE3 and the newer Prescott instructions... this FoxConn 875A02 motherboard is prepared to take you to the next level."

"Zalman has always been known for producing near silent products which are used in many HTPCs these days. We decided we needed to review one of their main stream coolers to go along with our previous Zalman product reviews. Let us show you how well this unit performed (or didn't) while keeping the HTPC user in mind. This review will finish out our entire Zalman product lineup review including their Heatpipe VGA cooler, PSU, and now the CPU cooler."

"Level5 RAID requires Exclusive OR calculations for every write to the disc array. Most advanced controllers employ a dedicated, specialized XOR processor to calculate the parity values within the close sub-environment of the controller configuration, moreover, the XOR processor is doing the calculations in hardware. Budget RAID cards are either not capable of supporting a RAID Level5 configuration, or else, they need to establish the parity values by resorting to the CPU for the necessary calculations in software emulation."

"Today we will take a look at their latest Pentium 4 motherboard; The P4R800-V Deluxe. This robust motherboard sports some interesting technology, specifically the ATI Radeon 9100 IGP chipset. This chipset is one of a kind by providing on-board video capabilities and ultimately better graphic performance. Support for Intel's next generation Prescott CPU makes this board attractive, functional and definitely up-to-date. Let's take a look at how this board performs in our benchmarks...."

That is all for the moment friends. I will be back before you know it :) - Cheers